Then I started thinking about something more important than the parking space.
What if something was actually wrong with him?
Someone sleeping in a parked car isn’t automatically an emergency.
He could have been exhausted.
He could have stopped to take a quick nap before driving home.
He could have been waiting for someone.
There are plenty of innocent explanations.
But from a distance, I couldn’t know whether he was simply sleeping or whether he was experiencing some kind of medical problem.
Step 4: I Decided to Tell an Employee
Eventually, I mentioned the situation to a couple of store employees.
I wasn’t trying to get the man in trouble.
I wasn’t asking them to immediately tow his car.
I simply thought someone who worked there could take a look.
If he was perfectly fine, great.
If he was simply taking a nap, he could wake up when he was ready.
But if he was unresponsive or needed help, someone could potentially notice before it became a serious situation.
Step 5: Maybe I Was Overreacting
Afterward, I started wondering whether I had made too much of it.
Maybe the man was just exhausted.
Maybe he had worked a long shift.
Maybe he had pulled over specifically because he was too tired to drive.
And honestly, if that’s what happened, stopping to rest was probably much safer than trying to drive while exhausted.
That’s why I don’t necessarily blame him for sleeping.
The part that bothered me was simply that he appeared completely out of it while sitting in a busy parking lot.
Step 6: There’s Also the Parking Issue
At the same time, I understand why people were frustrated.
When a parking lot is extremely busy, taking up a prime space for an extended period while sleeping can understandably annoy other customers.
But we also don’t know what someone else is dealing with.
Maybe he had a reason.
Maybe he was having a difficult day.
Maybe he needed that rest more than we realized.
It’s easy to judge a situation when we only see one photograph or one moment.
Step 7: What Would You Have Done?
Would you have ignored it?
Would you have told a store employee?
Would you have knocked on the window yourself?
Personally, I think notifying an employee was the reasonable middle ground.
I didn’t know the man, and I didn’t know whether he was okay.
A store employee could decide whether the situation needed attention without me getting directly involved.
The More I Think About It…
I realize there are really two separate issues here.
One is parking etiquette.
The other is making sure someone who appears unusually unresponsive is okay.
And the second one matters more to me.
A person sleeping in a car isn’t automatically doing anything wrong.
But if someone genuinely appears unconscious or cannot be awakened, that’s different. In that situation, getting appropriate emergency help would be much more important than worrying about a parking space.
So maybe I wasn’t as annoyed by the sleeping man as I initially thought.
Maybe I was just surprised by the whole situation.
What would you have done if you saw this? Would you leave him alone, tell an employee, or check on him yourself?
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